Title: The Art of Angel Sanctuary: Angel Cage
Artist: Kaori Yuki
Publisher: Viz Media
Vintage: Originally published in Japan by Hakusensha (Hana to Yume‘s publisher) in 1997, and in America by Viz Media in 2005.
Price: $19.99, hardback. A real bargain for roughly 70 pages of gorgeous, full color art spreads, on top of multiple pages devoted to explaining the mythology of Angel Sanctuary (the manga this is based on), an index of each piece of art, and an interview with Kaori Yuki. Totals about 80 glossy pages.
This beautiful book is a not only a must-have for every Kaori Yuki fan, but for anyone who collects comic art. These gorgeous, full color works of art are mostly collected from Hana to Yume magazine (a phone book sized, semi-monthly Japanese shojo magazine), where they were covers, splash pages, chapter pages, placed in calendars, on insert posters, etc. Spring for the hardback; it’s a bargain at just $19.99, and it will look great on any shelf or table.
What you will find in this book is sure to delight your eyes. 33 full, single page images. 11 full, double page spreads (so, 22 pages). A scattering of multiple image pages. Five pages detailing the characters and mythology of Angel Sanctuary. Three pages of black and white title page images. A five page interview with Kaori Yuki. A full index of every image in the book (detailing where and when they were originally published). And a hard cover with gold foil lettering. Every turn of the page will leave you breathless as you flip through Kaori Yuki’s amazing work. She’s one of my favorite manga artists, and it’s not hard to see why.
The book isn’t 100% Angel Sanctuary; there are some images toward the back of the book taken from her other series (like Cain). The book also has some suggestive posing and partial nudity, so you should probably shelve it if you have small children running around. Although it was released in 2005, it should still be easy to find. I know Amazon carries it, and I used to see it all the time on the shelf at Barnes and Noble.
Come back next week for some helpful Christmas shopping tips! And a little later this week, I’ll be posting my monthly Previews preview.
Kris
kristin@comicattack.net
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That cover and the two page spread are amazing!
Everything in the book is gorgeous. There’s a second volume that I want to get my hands on. Kaori Yuki is one of my absolute favorite artists, of any medium. Her stories are a little…well, they’re not for everyone. For example, Angel Sanctuary is about a boy who is the reincarnation of a female angel (sentenced to an eternity of painful reincarnations as punishment for defying their god), but he’s in love with his sister, who has a girl friend who has been taken over by the female angel’s brother…. And there’s a pair of cross-dressing demons following the main character around (a girl who dresses as a boy, and a boy who dresses as a girl). There’s a lot of sexual ambiguity, incest, religious mythology…. She seems to like gothic and Victorian themes, with troubled characters.
Looks like a great coffee table book!
You know, I don’t read titles like this but these articles are always fun to read. I like that they are packed with info AND perspective. Good Stuff K.
Why, thank you!